Program

Nov 3, 2015 7:00 PM

Tuesday Film Club: Lesson Faust

Michaela Pavlátová’s short animation Words, Words, Words followed by Jan Švankmajer’s animated comedy/drama, Lesson Faust is a new take on the old legend of a man who sold his soul to the devil.
Director: Jan Švankmajer, 1994, 97 min

Artist, director and animator Michaela Pavlátová graduated
from the animated film department of the Academy of Arts in 1987. Her animated
films have won many prestigious
international awards. In 1993 an animated short movie Words, Words, Words (1991) was nominated for
an Oscar. Her next animated movie
Repeat (1995) won at the 1995 Berlinale Golden
Bear in the category of short
films.

At the end of the nineties she lived in the US, where she worked as a director in the studio, Wild Brain. She taught
at FAMU in Prague
and the Academy of Arts in San Francisco as
well as Harvard. In 2003 she made the film Faithless
Games, which was awarded with the Special Jury Prize at the International
Film Festival in San Sebastian.

Jan Švankmajer
is a Czech filmmaker and artist whose work spans several media. He is a
self-labeled surrealist known for his animations and features, which have
greatly influenced other artists such as Terry Gilliam, the Brothers Quay, and
many others.

Lesson
Faust
is a very free adaptation of Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus' and Goethe's 'Faust'. Švankmajer's Faust is a nondescript man who,
after being lured by a strange map into a sinister puppet theatre, finds
himself immersed in an indescribably weird version of the play, blending live
actors, clay model animation and giant puppets.

In Czech with English subtitles.First-come, first-served.Free admission.